“The entire industry — including OpenAI and Anthropic’s theoretical revenues of $13.1 billion and $4.5 billion — hit around $65 billion last year, and that includes the revenues from providing compute generated by neoclouds like CoreWeave and hyperscalers like Microsoft.”
Our reading, the sentence that was checked:
The entire AI industry, including OpenAI's and Anthropic's theoretical revenues of $13.1 billion and $4.5 billion, hit around $65 billion in revenue last year.
Assessment: Unresolved Evidence as of
Where and when Ed Zitron wrote it
Where's Your Ed At, Four Horsemen of the AIpocalypse, paragraph 116.
- Said
- Source observed
- live page, full text, public
- Evidence as of
- the cutoff for this assessment
- Assessment recorded
- assessment wyea-four-horsemen-of-the-aipocalypse-aebc27-a2
We recorded 31 claims from this post. See every claim from this post.
The wording above is the version this site observed on 2026-10-28. The source may have been edited after 2026-04-21. This page does not claim the wording was captured then.
What the claim commits to
- Kind
- Observation
- Deadline, as the speaker wrote it
- None stated. This site does not add one.
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Deadline state on 2026-10-29
- No horizon (the release’s reference date)
Conditions
- including compute revenues of neoclouds like CoreWeave and hyperscalers like Microsoft (scope, stated by the speaker)
From the speaker
- The entire industry
- OpenAI and Anthropic’s theoretical revenues of $13.1 billion and $4.5 billion
- around $65 billion last year
- includes the revenues from providing compute
- neoclouds like CoreWeave and hyperscalers like Microsoft
Our interpretation
- 'Last year' means calendar 2025.
- The surrounding discussion identifies the generative AI industry, including its compute services, rather than every historical use of AI.
- The dollar figures are US dollars and describe realized annual revenue, not year-end annualized run rates.
- 'Theoretical revenues' and the surrounding reliance on reporting indicate estimates rather than a stated GAAP or IFRS aggregate.
- The explicit inclusion of upstream compute requires a transparent aggregation method. No arbitrary percentage tolerance is added to 'around'.
- The named company figures are components; verifying them alone does not verify the industry total.
Counts as supported if: A transparent, sufficiently comprehensive estimate of calendar-2025 realized revenue for the stated industry scope places the total reasonably near $65 billion and substantiates the named components.
Counts as contradicted if: A comparable comprehensive estimate or defensible bound places revenue materially outside an ordinary approximation to $65 billion, or establishes a material error in a named component.
Retrospective: these criteria were written after the outcome was public.
Current assessment
Was it true for the period described?
Outcome: Unresolved
The record was checked, and the evidence available by the cutoff does not settle it.
Scored on a plain reading. The speaker named no measure for this claim, so it was judged on the reading an informed reader would take, stated below under our interpretation. Both reviews had to find that reading fair.
- Evidence as of
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Assessment recorded
- Policy version
- 2026-10-28.7
Rationale
A February 20, 2026 secondary account of CNBC reporting puts OpenAI's calendar-2025 revenue at $13.1 billion [e1]. Anthropic's audited results, disclosed October 26, 2026, report $4.585 billion for the year ended December 31, 2025, close to the stated $4.5 billion [e2]. These sources support the named components approximately, but neither provides an industry-wide total including neocloud and hyperscaler compute services [e1, e2]. They cannot settle whether that calendar-2025 total was around $65 billion [e1, e2].
Limitations
- No comprehensive, scope-matched industry aggregation or defensible bound is supplied.
- Industry coverage and treatment of reseller, intercompany and overlapping compute revenues remain unspecified.
- The OpenAI figure comes from secondary reporting rather than public financial statements.
Evidence (2 items)
Context only: Investing.com, republished by Yahoo Finance,
OpenAI generated $13.1 billion in revenue.
Why it matters here: Matches the stated OpenAI component, based on a secondary account of reporting from unnamed sources. It does not measure the entire industry.
- Publisher
- Investing.com, republished by Yahoo Finance
- Kind of source
- Secondary summary
- Measures
- OpenAI, Revenue, USD billions, estimate, 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31
- Describes events of
- Public from
Context only: Anthropic, PBC / U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission,
Revenue for the year ended December 31, 2025 increased by $4.2 billion, or 1,088%
Why it matters here: The adjacent audited results table reports 2025 revenue of $4,585 million, close to the claimed $4.5 billion component. This company's accounts cannot establish the industry estimate.
- Publisher
- Anthropic, PBC / U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
- Kind of source
- Regulatory filing, audited
- Measures
- Anthropic, Revenue, USD millions, company reported, 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31
- Describes events of
- Public from
What would settle it
A transparent calendar-2025 realized-revenue reconciliation covering generative AI providers and the included compute services, with substantiated company estimates and explicit treatment of reseller and intercompany sales, would test the $65 billion total.
Where it was said (1)
Said once in the sources this register covers.
: Where's Your Ed At, Four Horsemen of the AIpocalypse
The entire industry — including OpenAI and Anthropic’s theoretical revenues of $13.1 billion and $4.5 billion — hit around $65 billion last year, and that includes the revenues from providing compute generated by neoclouds like CoreWeave and hyperscalers like Microsoft.
- Where
- paragraph 116
- Published
- 2026-04-21
- Source observed
- , live page
- Access
- full text, public
History
Assessment versions
- Assessment wyea-four-horsemen-of-the-aipocalypse-aebc27-a2: Current. Outcome: Unresolved. Evidence as of 2026-10-28. Public date not recorded.
Recorded events
Assessment publishedBy this site
First assessment published after both reviews and the final-text check passed.
About assessment wyea-four-horsemen-of-the-aipocalypse-aebc27-a2.